pulverize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to reduce to dust or powder, as by pounding or grinding.
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to demolish or crush completely.
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Slang. to defeat, hurt badly, or, figuratively, render helpless.
The Kid pulverized Jackson with a series of brutal lefts. He's a veteran nightclub comic who can pulverize any audience in seconds.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to reduce (a substance) to fine particles, as by crushing or grinding, or (of a substance) to be so reduced
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(tr) to destroy completely; defeat or injure seriously
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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pulverizesimple
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pulverizessimple
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have pulverizedperfect
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has pulverizedperfect
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am pulverizingprogressive
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are pulverizingprogressive
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is pulverizingprogressive
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have been pulverizingperfect progressive
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has been pulverizingperfect progressive
Past
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pulverizedsimple
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had pulverizedperfect
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was pulverizingprogressive
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were pulverizingprogressive
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had been pulverizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pulverize
1575–85; < Late Latin pulverizāre to reduce to powder, equivalent to Latin pulver- (stem of pulvis; akin to pollen ) dust + -izāre -ize
Explanation
When you pulverize something, you break it up until it becomes dust or powder. You might pulverize coffee beans in a grinder, running it until the coffee turns to powder. Pulvis is the Latin word for "dust." When something is turned into dust, often it becomes useless. That's why pulverize can also mean "to destroy or demolish." Construction crews pulverize a building using wrecking balls and sometimes even explosives. The materials left behind are broken into such small parts that they can't be salvaged for other uses.
Vocabulary lists containing pulverize
The Lightning Thief
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List 2
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Hatchet
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Back when McIlroy first rose to stardom, he turned heads with his ability to pulverize the ball.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026
The site also is being used to pulverize concrete removed from burned properties, according to the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2025
Do not pulverize in a machine, just chop fine, then mix with crumbs and coconut in a bowl and set aside.
From Salon ● Apr. 25, 2024
"Because there is more comet dust closer to the Sun, we had expected collisions there would pulverize the pebbles that much faster," says Jenniskens.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 21, 2024
I thought she was going to pulverize Travis, but she said in a shaky voice: “You don’t understand anything, punk. I’m never going in there again. Never!”
From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan
In this recipe at Food & Wine, David Chang "pulverizes the kombu to a powder and blends it with softened butter to baste striped bass fillets."
From Salon ● May 14, 2024
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK—Every year, Ranga Dias pulverizes about $100,000 in diamonds, crushing them to a gray powder he tosses in the trash.
From Science Magazine ● Aug. 26, 2021
But in rare instances, “we have seen a failure mode where the core pulverizes and falls back into the hole.”
From Scientific American ● Aug. 12, 2021
The NFL doesn’t settle, at least not this soon; it pulverizes.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 16, 2019
It cuts, turns and pulverizes the surface soil somewhat after the manner of the plow.
From The First Book of Farming by Goodrich, Charles Landon
Drizzle with the melted butter and olive oil, then toss gently until the cracker pieces are coated but not pulverized.
From Salon ● Jul. 14, 2026
Boos followed Venezuela's interim leader Delcy Rodriguez during a visit to a Caracas neighborhood pulverized by two massive earthquakes.
From Barron's ● Jun. 27, 2026
Those efforts could be in vain if Haiti’s local economy is pulverized, making recovery efforts more challenging.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2025
The 17-year-old from Cross Ash, Monmouthshire, had been racing downhill mountain bikes since he was eight, wanting to "go fast all the time", when he crashed before a race and pulverized one of his kidneys.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2025
"What good will a pulverized probe do Watney?"
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
It manufactures neodymium magnets by pouring liquid alloy onto a rotating, cooled disk, then rapidly quenching and pulverizing it to freeze the delicate crystalline structure at a microscopic scale before it can grow.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
How could they stay on the same October field against an All-Star team that has just spent three nights pulverizing them?
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2023
In contrast, corn chips are created by pulverizing corn kernels into a dough, mixing it with water, and subjecting the slurry to intense heat and pressure using an extruder.
From Slate ● Jul. 18, 2023
The water’s natural capacity to store carbon can be boosted by pulverizing and adding alkaline rocks such as basalt or limestone.
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 14, 2023
Dimple yelled, her voice crashing into him, reaching into his chest, and pulverizing his heart.
From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
